h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Due (partly) to the absence of H2G2 I have a freecell addiction.

My PC shows that I have played four and a half thousand games (other members of
my family must have contributed to this!) . In itself this is bad enough, but I have
become fixated on trying to keep my winning up above 59%. Has anyone encountered
this difficulty and has anyone any idea how to deal with it? Is there a limit to the
number of games Windows 95 will record? Is this my way out?

I have considered resetting the game score but that would inevitably set me off trying
to score a greater percentage.

Help.

Editorial Note: We've moved this Conversation to the Ask h2g2 forum, where it has more chance of getting spotted.

As its a 32 bit program, the most likely data type for the number of games played is a 2 byte integer.

The bad news is that this can go up to 64 thousand games.

The worse news is that they may have used a 4 byte long...which will go up to over 4 million games.

However, most MS games hold their score data ina text format in a file called an INI file - look for a file called FREECELL.INI, edit this and your score will be updated. In other words - cheat

Apparently, (according the the freecell FAQ I found by entering 'freecell total number games unsolvable' into Google, there are 32000 games in Windows's Freecell, of which 2 are actually impossible.

The shareware game 'Freecell Plus' has 2 billion possible games. I *think* it also has a multi-level undo, which is a real improvement. (It's possible that there may be more than one Freecell Plus out there, so the above may not apply to all variants)

I though *all Freecell* games were possible - surely those 2 games are like cold fusion or Fermat's last theorem or whatever - the answer is out there.

Have you fallen for the trick of choosing game No1 solving it, and then determining to go through them all numerically? It leads to some very anoraky conversation ("What about 23? Man what a bummer..." etc) Sad...

By the way, Mr Pink Paisley, I noticed you've posted this question to a number of differnt fora, I hope you don't fall foul of the spamming section in the house rules "No spamming. On h2g2, spamming is the posting of the same (or very similar) messages to lots of forums. It's especially antisocial if it's off-topic for those forums. So please don't send the same message, or very similar messages, to loads of different Conversation Forums..."

Just wanted to boast that I gave up playing Freecell after winning 23 consecutive games I came back to playing it recently and had lost the knack - was only averaging 50%. Need to get out more.

I used to have a Freecell addiction, but I'm pleased to say that with a little willpower and support from my friends and family, I am well on the road to recovery .

Pleased to hear it Cafram!

It was H2G2, my fellow researchers, which has helped me to avoid such addictions in recent months. Having said that - can anybody help me to get hold of a copy of "Chips Challenge" - employer's firewalls notwithstanding... I could even set up an email address to receive it.

Sad
Sad
Desparately Sad
Cloviscat

During the days of writing my PhD thesis, freecell became amajor addiction for me. I played it so much that I managed to get up to 92% average and once got 78 games on the trot correct at the first attempt. This was a heavy duty addiction . Far more interesting then typing my thesis up though. I still like to see how good my latest graphics card is by seeing how quickly it can shuffle the cards at freecell.
Strangely, housework and daytime TV became rather more fascinating than normal too. I had similar problem during finals revision, is this normal or is it just me?

Heres's the that didn't come through for you

It's perfectly normal - I never hoovered so much as when writing my thesis. A walk to the local Co-op became the thrill of my day. It made being unemployed seem like a holiday

Perhaps a guide entry on boredom-induced homeworking-avoidance?

You have not known addiction until you have "The Incredible machine" by Sierra on your PC.
(More recently the new version is also called "Contraptions")
Oh the hours I've spent trying to bet the bowling ball to knock the light switch to light a candle to fire a canon etc...

Thanks Cloviscat.
Phew you've reassured me. Definitely a topic for Ask h2g2 at the very least I would imagine. There must be many far more ingenious methods of avoiding it than we've managed so far.

Yes I know. An accident I am afraid. The revived H2G2 seems to operate alittle differently. Sorry.

My bloke's given up freecell for lent. He found the link dangerously close to notepad to avoid, and has since removed it from his computer. You can get to a couple of wierd games by entering -1 or -2 in the promt you get if you press f3 in windoze freecell, but you probably all already know this.

I have to keep it safe away on the Win98 disk, locked in that "beware of the lepoard" cupboard.

The two impossible games - -1 and -0

I am glad some siad they are impossible

Hmmm, just tried it, indeed, -1 does look kinda tricky, -2 too. 0 isn't accepted though, so I guess those must be the ones.

When I was "studying" for my year 12 exams Freecell took over...who needs to know about the French Revolution when there's Freecell to play?!

Oh dear, I've got exams and coursework to be doing and you're reminding me about Freecell; and telling me of games I didn't know existed. Poof! (The sound of my degree disappearing into thin air)

BBS

Minesweeper can pass the time too

Just be thankful Tetris is no longer en vougue. Now THAT was addictive .

Minesweeper can pass the time too

Just be thankful Tetris is no longer en vogue. Now THAT was addictive .